It did not begin with an attack.
Nor with an alarm.
Not even with a sense of danger.
It began with something simpler…
and far more terrifying.
Forgetting.
Nir was standing in the village square,
speaking with an old woman he had called "aunt" for years.
He was explaining how to mix bitter herbs to ease a fever.
Then he stopped suddenly.
His voice stopped…
because her name stopped existing in his mind.
He looked at her face.
The face was there.
The wrinkles were there.
The smile was there.
But the name?
Nothing.
A clean emptiness…
as if the name had never existed at all.
He said hesitantly, "You're…"
She smiled calmly.
"It's alright, my son. You grew up and forgot."
But Nir had not forgotten.
He felt something being pulled away…
not just from his memory,
but from the place itself.
He noticed people passing by her
without greeting,
without a glance,
without recognition.
As if she had become transparent—
not because she was disappearing,
but because the world had decided not to see her.
Nir's limbs grew cold.
He whispered, "No…"
Then he saw something worse.
The shadow behind him
no longer followed him.
At the far end of the village,
the second name began to crack.
Biath was repairing a farming tool.
A young man approached him and said,
"You…"
He stopped.
"Strange," he said, staring at Biath's face.
"I feel like I know you… but I can't find a reason why."
Biath's heart trembled.
He knew this feeling well.
This was not doubt.
Not forgetfulness.
This was the revocation of existence itself.
He said slowly,
"How many times have you seen me before?"
The young man hesitated.
"I don't know… I feel like you've always been here…
but as if your existence is a miscalculation."
Biath stepped back.
When he turned to run,
he noticed something that made him stop.
His footprints in the dirt…
were disappearing
immediately behind him.
Kim did not need to see
the seal on his chest
pulsing.
Not as a warning—
but as confirmation.
He said quietly,
"Erasure has begun."
The thing inside him
was no longer asleep.
In a layer no one inhabited,
there was neither light nor darkness.
There was a record.
A record not written,
but imposed.
Invisible threads
bound every being to its origin,
its world,
its cause.
Then came the will.
Not angry.
Not hurried.
Cold.
Precise.
Connection canceled.
Nir was not deleted.
Biath was not erased.
Instead, something smarter…
and crueler was done.
The reasons for their existence were removed.
The memories of the worlds they came from.
The records of their exile.
The decisions that cast them here.
Reality was rewritten:
They had never been subjects.
They had never been exiled.
They had never even been mistakes.
They were simply…
beings without origin.
The sky did not split.
It lowered.
As if existence itself bent—
not in reverence,
but in function.
A man appeared.
Not a giant.
Not a god.
A man with ordinary features.
And that was the danger.
Because he did not represent an idea…
but a decision.
When his feet touched the sky,
the light dimmed by one degree.
Not because the light was afraid,
but because it was no longer necessary.
He looked at the village.
He did not see people.
He saw remaining errors.
He said calmly,
"Erasure in progress."
"Resistance: zero."
"Proof… active."
He smiled faintly.
Nir reached Kim, panting.
"Kim!"
"People are forgetting—not just names… but reasons!"
Biath was pale.
"Even me… I feel like I'm losing weight in the world."
Kim raised his head.
His left eye saw what could not be seen.
The threads.
The threads of their existence
were being cut,
one… by one.
He said with terrifying calm,
"They don't want to kill you."
Nir asked in a broken voice,
"Then what?"
Kim replied,
"They want to turn you into something that never existed in reality."
A deadly silence fell.
Then Kim lifted his gaze to the sky.
He said—not shouting,
yet it reached:
"I see you."
The Hunter tilted his head.
For the first time…
he looked directly at Kim.
Kim felt an attempt at measurement.
Classification.
Threat assessment.
But the thing inside him
stepped forward.
The Hunter said,
"You are outside the record… temporarily."
Kim smiled.
A smile without mercy.
"And you," he said,
"are inside an error you will never understand."
The Hunter replied coldly,
"We shall see."
And in that moment…
the second phase of erasure began.
The seal trembled.
Chaos remained silent.
But the darkness inside Kim
opened its eyes.